Quotes by Japanese Authors - Page 2

When you become big enough to wear this, they'll come for you. You'll probably be 17. It will be spring. Get on the ship. There, your ability will be needed. Then you'll be... free from solitude.
Shirō Yuiga
In response to my father-in-law's view, I offered no opinion. He was not looking for my opinion. He had merely been spouting his belief, a conviction that would remain unchanged for all eternity.
Haruki Murakami
After that cancellation [of the Superconducting Super Collider in Texas, after $2 billion had been spent on it], we physicists learned that we have to sing for our supper. ... The Cold War is over. You can't simply say “Russia!” to Congress, and they whip out their checkbook and say, “How much?” We have to tell the people why this atom-smasher is going to benefit their lives.
Michio Kaku
It is not memories but the person we have become because of those past experiences that we should treasure. This is the lesson these keepsakes teach us when we sort them. The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not the person we were in the past. P.118
Marie Kondō
In years past, a person died, and eventually all those with memories of him or her also died, bringing about the complete erasure of that person's existence. Just as the human body returned to dust, mingling with atoms of the natural world, a person's existence would return to nothingness.How very clean.Now, as if in belated punishment for the invention of writing, any message once posted on the Internet was immortal. Words as numerous as the dust of the earth would linger forever in their millions and trillions and quadrillions and beyond.
Minae Mizumura
I go about saying how pained and tormented, how lonely and sad I feel, but what do I really mean by that? If I were to speak the truth, I would die.
Osamu Dazai
All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it? - I don't know.
Osamu Dazai
I have always believed that atrademark is the life of an enterpriseand that it must be protected boldly. Atrademark and a company name arenot just clever gimmicks-they carryresponsibility and guarantee thequality of the product. If someone triesto get a free ride on the reputation andthe ability of another who has workedto build up public trust, it is nothingshort of thievery. We were not flatteredby this theft of our name.
Akio Morita
By just living one’s life, sadness accumulates here and there, be it in the blankets hung out in the sun to dry, the toothbrushes in the bathroom, and the phone history logs.
Makoto Shinkai
In ancient times people weren't just male or female, but one of three types: male/male, male/female, or female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangement and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everybody in half, right down the middle. So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing other half.
Haruki Murakami
Dogs are actually very smart, it's just that they're rather clumsy, but it's this trait that makes humans attracted to them and why I love dogs so much.
Hiromu Arakawa
Tokyo is bigger than Kumamoto. And Japan is bigger than Tokyo. And even bigger than Japan... Even bigger than Japan is the inside of your head. Don't ever surrender yourself ― not to Japan, not to anything. You may think that what you're doing is for the sake of the nation, but let something take possession of you like that, and all you do is bring it down.
Sōseki Natsume
Actually, time had always been passing. I had just managed to avoid thinking about it very much. It would be hard for me to recapture that feeling—life wasn’t so easy anymore. Small things pricked my heart. In those early days, I lived in a world of overwhelming sensations; it was like I had just fallen out of love.
Banana Yoshimoto
Food and medicine are not two different things: they are the front and back of one body. Chemically grown vegetables may be eaten for food, but they cannot be used as medicine.
Masanobu Fukuoka
But when we consider how small after all the cup of human enjoyment is, how soon overflowed with tears, how easily drained to the dregs in our quenchless thirst for infinity, we shall not blame ourselves for making so much of the tea-cup.
Kakuzō Okakura
Grandfather always said school's a place where they take sixteen years to wear down your brain. Grandfather hardly went to school either.
Haruki Murakami
Every person has their own colour.
Haruki Murakami
But they say that people who aren't confident in themselves tend to be more flashy
Kanae Hazuki
Writing things was important, wasn't it? Nakata asked.'Yes, it was. The process of writing was important. Even though the finished product is completely meaningless.
Haruki Murakami
A name could be either a ghost or a portent depending on which side of time you were standing. The name Whaletown had become a mere specter of the past, a crepuscular Pacific shimmer, but the name Desolation Sound still hovered in the liminal space and felt to her both oracular and haunted.
Ruth Ozeki
I've never been afraid of being alone. For the sake of my work, I must be!
Ochiai Naoyuki
True freedom comes from being unknown.
Ruth Ozeki
Fate is a cruelly sweet fruit.
Jun Mochizuki
No human being can be so honest as to become completely false.
Yukio Mishima
The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky.
Haruki Murakami
No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away.
Haruki Murakami
Health, wealth, reputation, and status are all mere ingredients of happiness. The key to true well-being is being able to manage them capably.
Kentetsu Takamori
If god is dead, who's going to fix this mess?
Satoshi Kon
There are three reasons I failed. Not enough training. Not enough training. And not enough training.
Haruki Murakami
Language is accurate: you run for your life. If you are dying, leave. If you are suffering, move. There is no other law, only movement.
Amélie Nothomb
Transient guests are we.
Hideyuki Kikuchi
Why would you want to appear as one thing and be another? If you are a warrior then you are a warrior and if you are not a warrior then you are not a warrior. The Way of the warrior is the Way of the warrior. To be a warrior, look like a warrior and stand like a warrior. Do not be false to yourself.
Miyamoto Musashi
When a human's tears dry up forever, they transform into a monster
Kohta Hirano
We Orientals tend to seek our satisfactions in whatever surroundings we happen to find ourselves, to content ourselves with things as they are; and so darkness causes us no discontent, we resign ourselves to it as inevitable. If light is scarce, then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty. But the progressive Westerner is determined always to better his lot. From candle to oil lamp, oil lamp to gaslight, gaslight to electric light—his quest for a brighter light never ceases, he spares no pains to eradicate even the minutest shadow.
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
I have nothing to do with him,” L said. “To be completely accurate, I do not even know B. He is simply someone I am aware of. But none of this affects my judgment. Certainly, I was interested in this case, and began to investigate it because I knew who the killer was. But that did not alter the way I investigated it, or the manner in which my investigation proceeded. Naomi Misora, I cannot overlook evil. I cannot forgive it. It does not matter if I know the person who commits evil or not. I am only interested in justice.”“Only... in justice…” Misora gasped. “Then... nothing else matters?” “I wouldn’t say that, but it is not a priority.”“You won’t forgive any evil, no matter what the evil is?” “I wouldn’t say that, but it is not a priority.”“But...”Like a thirteen-year-old victim. “There are people who justice cannot save.” Like a thirteen-year old criminal. “And there are people who evil can save.”“There are. But even so,” L said, his tone not changing at all, as if gently admonishing Naomi Misora. “Justice has more power than anything else.”“Power? By power... you mean strength?”“No. I mean kindness.” He said it so easily.
NisiOisiN
Strangely enough, when you get older the things you didn't understand when you were a child start to make sense. "When this happened, I should have done that." "When that happened, I should have said this." those types of things. You start to understand rather than regret. It may be closer to repentance. So it may be that I do want to repent and erase the ignorant self from my childhood.
Natsuki Takaya
To deceive oneself is worse than to deceive others." These harsh words pierced me to the core.
Shinichi Suzuki
It is very simple, actually. It is because you and Tengo were so powerfully drawn to each other.
Haruki Murakami
There was no sudden twists or ups and downs, just stories of that person's everyday life. The theme was "growing old". There were no beautiful wo
Takashi Kajii
Nana...how come being happy and making your dreams come true are two different things? Even now, I still don't know why...
Ai Yazawa
I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. You’re all locked up in that little world of yours, and when I try knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go right back inside.
Haruki Murakami
A maggot is just another life form.
Shinmon Aoki
It's not like I'm all into nostalgia and history, it's just that I can't stand the way things are now
Novala Takemoto
There was much about him that was fine and beautiful, but he could never find the confidence he needed.
Haruki Murakami
I think most readers would say the same. Most would choose Midori. And the protagonist, of course, chooses her in the end. But some part of him is always in the other world and he cannot abandon it. It’s a part of him, an essential part. All human beings have a sickness in their minds. That space is a part of them.
Haruki Murakami
When my own time comes, will I too long for the sea? I think I will be content enough with the soil. And I will not demand the exact spot, but let it be within this country Horace and I have spent the years roaming contentedly.
Kazuo Ishiguro
I can't imagine a life without a story.
Banana Yoshimoto
Too lazy to be ambitious,I let the world take care of itself.Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?Listening to the night rain on my roof,I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.
Ryōkan
Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life.
Santōka Taneda
Man is a genius when he is dreaming.
Akira Kurosawa
Just 'cuz a kid is crying doesn't mean it's a conversation worth crying over.
Tite Kubo
Otaku (おた) is also a formal way of saying "you". た means "house", and with the honorific お, it literally means "your honorable house", implying that you are less of a person and more of a place, fixed in space and contained under a roof. Makes sense that the stereotype of the modern otaku is a shut-in, an obsessed loner and social isolate who rarely leaves his house.
Ruth Ozeki
...somewhere, on some subterranean level, her darkness and his may have connected.
Haruki Murakami
I don't want to die in darkness any thicker than this. I want to bring some kind of resolution in my life.
Shūsaku Endō
The passage of time will usually extract the venom of most things and render them harmless
Haruki Murakami
This world is wrong. We have to correct it.
Sui Ishida
But I have my life, I’m living it. It’s twisted, exhausting, uncertain, and full of guilt, but nonetheless, there’s something there.
Banana Yoshimoto
No matter how much you feel it in your heart, if you don't tell the person then it's meaningless.
Shungiku Nakamura
If you say I hide things because I'm shy, that can't be right. I've finally realized it's for a different reason-- that I don't want to see the darkness that lies in my heart
Natsuo Kirino
It might be a little silly for someone getting to be my age to put this into words, but I just want to make sure I get the facts down clearly : I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two everyday running alone, not speaking to anyone as well as four of five hours at my desk, to be neither difficult or boring.
Haruki Murakami